Method of simultaneously drawing a plurality of wires and apparatus therefor

ABSTRACT

A plurality of filaments are simultaneously drawn by disposing the plurality in an apparatus comprising a trough formed in an elongated body, closing the trough to form a bound body and then drawing the bound body. The trough formed in the body comprises a deformable pleat having an excess piece. Closure of the trough is achieved by calking the excess piece of pleat. The method and apparatus are particularly useful in drawing stainless steel filaments.

United States Patent 11 1 1111 3,844,021 lamada 1 1 Oct. 29, 1974 METHOD OF SIMULTANEOUSLY 2,215,477 9 1940 Pipkin 29 423 x DRAWING A PLURALITY OF WIRES AND 3,277,564 10/ 1966 Webber er al. 29,/4219 R 3,413,707 12/ 968 Klein et a. 29 4 3 X APPARATUS THEREFOR 3,762,025 10/1973 Gottlieb 29/419 R [75] Inventor: Kplchr Hamada, Tokyo, Japan FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS [73] "sslgneeZ g .selsen Ltd-1 Osaka 358,060 12/1961 Switzerland l6l/l80 a an [22] Filed: July 16, 1973 Primary Examiner-Charles W. Lanham Assistant ExaminerD. C. Reiley, 111 [21] Appl' 379658- Attorney, Agent, or Firm-1rving M. Weiner Foreign July 17, 1972 Japan 47-71446 A plurality of filaments are Simu taneou y dra by disposing the plurality in an apparatus comprising a [52] 11.8. C1 29/419 R, 29/183,1269l//4l283(S trough formed in an elongated body, closing the [5]] Int Cl 323p 17/04 trough to form a bound body and then drawing the 58] Fieid g q g bound body. The trough formed in the body comprises "jg 11 1 1 6 a deformable pleat having an excess piece. Closure of the trough is achieved by calking the excess piece of [56] References Cited pleat. The method and apparatus are particularly useful in drawing stainless steel filaments. UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,050,298 8/1936 Everett 29/419 ux 10 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures sum in? 3 PAIENTEUBBI 29 I974.

METHOD OF SIMULTANEOUSLY DRAWING A PLURALITY OF WIRES AND APPARATUS THEREFOR BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention provides a fundamental technique for obtaining filaments or metal fibers by simultaneously drawing a plurality of wires.

2. Prior Art Generally, in order to obtain filaments by drawing material wires, material wires or bundles of material wires are disposed in a carrier to increase the apparent thickness of the entire body. Then, the entire body is drawn. It is necessary to employ this practice because, when the material wire is drawn to such extent that the wire diameter is reduced, the force required for the wire drawing exceeds the breaking stress limit of the thinned wire and the wire can no longer be drawn. However, when the entire body of coated material wires and carrier is drawn to a drawable limit, the material wires within the body become considerably thin while being protected by the carrier. By this process it is possible to obtain stainless steel fibers about microns in diameter. However, such processes are extremely costly. Thus, there still remains the need to improve the working efficiency of such processes and to reduce the cost associated therewith. To this end, the present invention provides a means whereby many material wires can be drawn veryefficiently by using a carrier of a special shape, thus, leading to a tremendous cost reduction in practicing the heretofore described processes.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to simultaneously draw many material wires.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a method of efficiently drawing a plurality of material wires.

A further object of the present invention is to draw stainless steel wires without sintering them in the working step.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a long wire drawing carrier to be applied to a method of simultaneously drawing a plurality of material wires.

The objects of the invention defined by the method of the present invention and the apparatus therefor will be more fully explained by the following detailed description and with reference to the drawings in which:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. l is a perspective view of a carrier with material wires on one side in accordance herewith;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view similar to FIG. 1 but wherein the material wires are bound;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an alternate embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the embodiment of FIG. 3 with the material wires disposed therewithin;

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the embodiment of FIG. 3, wherein the material wires are bound.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of many bound bodies formed by utilizing the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, and as collected in a long carrier of the same shape;

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of many bound bodies DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Now with reference to the drawing and, in particular, FIG. 1, there is depicted apparatus comprising a long carrier 1 of star-shaped cross-section. The carrier 1 has a plurality of pleats 2 each forming a trough 2 continuously in the lengthwise direction on the peripheral surface.'All of the pleats 2' are made to project in advance so as to bend in a fixed direction. The side of each of the pleats 2' forms a side wall 2" of the troughs 2.

The physical characteristics and chemical characteristics of the material used to make the carrier or long carrier 1 should be selected depending on the material wires to be drawn as described later. Particularly, a material which is similar to the material of the material wires to be drawn with regard to tensile strength and rolling characteristics, but which is soluble in a chemical solvent which does not dissolve the material wires,

must be employed. In the practice of the present invention it is preferred to fabricate the carrier 1 from a medium carbon steel, especially when drawing stainless steel wires. The use of medium carbon steel reduces wire breakage in the case of the later described wires while providing a composition to the long carrier which may be chemically dissolved and separated from the drawn filaments.

As shown in FIG. 2, there is a long carrier wherein the pleat 2 is thick and the excess piece of the pleat 2 overhanging the open part of the trough 2 is formed as a sharp edge. The excess piece of the pleat 2' need not always be sharp as illustrated but may be so soft as to be easily deformed.

It is, also, desirable to plate the inside of the trough 2 of the long carrier 1 with a metal hard to form an alloy with the material of the material wires to be drawn or to melt-spray a metal of such property on the inside of the long carrier. Such metal is introduced to the long carrier 1 in order to prevent the material wires 3 from being sintered by heat with the long carrier or with each other, when drawing them. The metal may be imparted when fitting the long carrier as described later. One particularly useful metal is copper which can be imparted by plating the stainless steel wires. The material wires 3 to be drawnare disposed or contained as a plurality of bundles in each trough 2. Each material wire 3 is coated with a metal hard to form an alloy with the material of the wire as above-described. The wires may be coated simultaneously by imparting a molten metal to the long carrier 1 when the material wires 3 are contained in the troughs 2 thereof. Furthermore, it is desirable to apply copper to the molten metal when the material wires 3 to be drawn are stainless steel. Additionally, it is desirable to bind the material wires 3 substantially in parallel with each other and to arrange the material wires so as not to intersect each other within the trough 2. However, depending on the contrivance in the case of drawing the wires, the bundle of the material wires 3 may be twisted.

Referring to FIG. 2, the long carrier 1 containing the plurality of bundled material wires 3 in each trough 2 has the pleats 2 forming the side walls 2" of the troughs 2 calked with a forming die so as to enclose the material wires 3 in each trough 2. A bound body 4 is, thus, formed by enclosing the material wires 3 in the long carrier 1. In this bound body 4, the pleats 2', which are easily deformed as described above, overlap each other to form a tube.

The formation of the tube is also achieved in the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 wherein the carrier is formed by protruding the tip parts of the pleats so as to overhang the troughs 2 (FIG. 5).

FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the instant invention where many material wires 3 are collected. When this carrier is put in a forming die, (FIG. 8), the pleats 2' will be overlapped on each other to form a tube in which many material wires are bound in each trough. The overlapping of these pleats 2 makes deformation and shrinkage easy when pulling the entire body out of the die. Either a generally used die or a roll die can be used for the forming die when enclosing the material wires 3 in the long carrier 1. When using a roll die it is set to oppose the excess pieces of the side walls of the troughs 2 and to press them in the centripetal direction.

It is thus seen from the preceding that the material wires 3 are coated, tightly bound and contained in the long carrier 1. It is very important to the subsequent wire drawing step that the material wires 3 be tightly bound in the long carrier 1. Unless such material wires 3 are uniformly and tightly bound, during the drawing process, only a part of the material wires 3 will be subjected to the wire drawing force and the material wires will be broken.

The bound body 4 comprising the long carrier 1 and the plurality of the material wires 3 can be, either, warm-drawn or cold-drawn. Preferably, cold drawing is used because of its working efficiency and quality control. However, in order to cold-draw the bound body 4 cold-workability must be imparted to the bound body 4 in advance, such as by heat-treatment or the like. As used herein, the term cold-workability" means a property by which the long carrier and the material wires coated and bound with the carrier can endure a high elongating degree as a bound body.

When a medium carbon steel AISI (American Iron and Steel Institute) C1030 to AISI C1055 is used for the long carrier and the material wires 3 are of a stainless steel (AISI 304 or any other material), the heattreatment for imparting the cold-workability can be carried out as follows: the bound body 4 is first heated to 960C and then quenched to 450 to 550C and kept thereat for a fixed time. When subjected to this treatment, the stainless steel wires within the body will be softened by annealing and the working history of the stainless steel wires before the heat treatment will vanish and the material of the wires will recrystallize to an easily workable austenite structure.

By heat-treatment the medium carbon steel long carrier transforms to a sorbite structure high in toughness and adapted to be worked. The sorbite structure in which carbide is finely distributed will be hard to embrittle even if a high degree of working is applied. This heat-treatment is utilized exclusively for the production of hard steel wires and is called patenting.

The tensile strength of the stainless steel when worked into an austenite structure and the tensile strength of when the medium carbon steel, modified by working it into to a sorbite structure, are substantially so similar to each other that, when a bound body is formed, the resistances inside and outside the bound body when the wires are drawn will substantially coincide with each other and the bound body will be integrally deformed and elongated.

If the cooling is too quick after the heating, a perfect sorbite structure cannot, usually, be obtained in the long carrier 1. It is therefore desirable to carry out a lead patenting. That is to say, it is quenched above the Ac transformation point in a monoxidizing atmosphere so as to be thermostatically transformed in a lead bath. If the lead film in such case is applied to the surface of the outer fitting material, it will be able to be used as a lubricant for drawing the wires with a die. Further, by lead patenting, the stainless steel wires 3 will be modified to an austenite structure; the long carrier 1 will be substantially of a sorbite structure so as to be cold-workable, and a lubrication will also be given by the lead coating.

This heat-treating step must be carried out carefully lest a bad influence be given to the material wires 3 and the cooling should be too quick.

The bound body 4 thus rendered cold-workable is then subjected to drawing with a die. In the case of the present invention, an ordinary die is proper but a roll die can be used.

The wire drawing step is carried out by using a wire drawing machine (not illustrated) provided with a die and capstan having a performance sufficient to draw the bound body 4. In this wire drawing step, the wire drawing velocity must be adjusted and set by a selective combination of the long carrier 1 and material wires 3.

During the drawings process, in the cross-section of the drawn bound body 4, the material wires 3 are pressed from outside so as to be reduced in the diameter, deformed and contacted with each other. The long carrier 1 is also collapsed at the overlapped end side edges to be integral with the wires. Thus, wires of a diameter smaller than that of the material wires are formed as a whole. It should be noted that care must be taken lest the material wires 3 should be sintered. In this wire drawing step, for example, when filaments are to be molded, the material wires will be elongated not once but, rather, the bound body will be graduallyrepeatedly elogated until a preset wire diameter is reached while interposing a patenting treatment and lubricating treatment, taking care lest a bad influence should be given to the material wires 3.

The bound body 4 is repeatedly drawn until the material wires 3 enclosed in the long carrier 1 are reduced to the desired or objective diameter. However, in such case, a plurality of material wires 3 are collected as a bundle and a plurality of such bundles are bound with one long carrier 1. Therefore, the entire body will increase in the apparent thickness and one integrally bound body will be worked. Therefore, it can be drawn considerably highly as it is.

However, and with reference to FIGS. 6 and 7, finer filaments or metal fibers can be obtained by a method wherein wire drawing is repeated by coating and binding a plurality of drawn bound bodies 4 or a plurality of undrawn bound bodies 4 with another large long carrier. In such a method, a plurality of bound bodies 4 are first coated along with a long carrier 1'. The long carrier 1 is similar to the long carrier 1 of FIG. 1. As with the long carrier 1 shown in FIG. 1, the open part of each trough 2 of carrier 1' is closed to form a compound bound body of a larger diameter.

The long carrier 1" shown in FIG. 7 is a band-shaped metal plate. It is, initially, formed with a trough-shaped cross-section, in which is dispsoed a plurality of such bound bodies 4 as described above. The carrier is, then, finished in a tubular shape. In such case the lengthwise end parts of the long carrier 1 are overlapped. As shown in FIG. 8, the forming die for the carrier 1' of FIG. 7 has a recessed part 5 to guide the parts to be overlapped. By thus overlapping the lengthwise end parts of the long carrier 1', the fastening and reduction by the die can be easily achieved.

A roll die can be used to draw compound bound bodies. The compound bound bodies are drawn and the drawn compound bound bodies further form a new compound bound body which is further drawn. By the repetition of the formation and drawing of such compound bound bodies, drawn wires of a proper or desired wire diameter are obtained It is desirable to carry out the patenting in and after the first wire drawing. However, always case coating should always be interposed when binding and drawing are repeated. Case coating will be indispensable particularly when each material wire is highly drawn to the fineness of the theoretically possible limit. In such drawn bound body (or,

compound bound body), the long carrier 1 and given metal compositions are chemically removed by a pickling process.

According to the present method, many material wires 3 are simultaneously drawn as a plurality of bundles. Therefore, the efficiency is very high; one integral body is drawn as a whole; deformation and reduction are made easy by the overlapping action of the pleats; the material wires 3 are tightly bound with each other and are bound integrally with the long carrier. Thus, the power required for the work is reduced and a remarkable effect is developed in preventing breaking of the wires.

Having thus described my invention, what is claimed is:

l. A method of simultaneously drawing a plurality of wires comprising the steps of:

6 a. providing a long carrier having a plurality of troughs formed in the peripheral surface thereof; b. containing a plurality of bundled material wires in the troughs; c. closing the troughs to form a bound body; d. drawing the bound body, and e. then separating the long carrier from the wires. 2. The method of claim 1 wherein each trough is formed from a pleat having an excess-piece thereof, and each trough is closed by calking the excess piece.

3. The method of claim 1 which further includes the steps of:

collecting and binding a plurality of the drawn bound bodies in a long carrier to form a compound drawn body, drawing the compound drawn body, and separating the long carriers from the material wires by a chemical process.

4. The method of claim 1 which includes the steps of:

a. prior to drawing the bound body, collecting a plurality of bound bodies,

b. containing the bound bodies in a long carrier to form a compound body, and

c. thereafter, drawing the compound bound body.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein a plurality of drawn compound bodies are collected and contained in another long carrier to form a further compound bound body, the further compound body being then coated and drawn.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the material wires are stainless steel and the long carrier is medium carbon steel.

7. The method of claim 6 which includes the step of lead patenting the bound body prior to drawing the bound body.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein the material wires are plated with a metal hard to form an alloy therewith, and which further includes the step of lead patenting the bound body prior to drawing the bound body.

9. A wire drawing carrier comprising an elongated body having a plurality of troughs formed on the peripheral surface thereof, each of the troughs comprising a deformable pleat extending along the axis of the body.

10. The carrier of claim 9 wherein the carrier is formed from medium carbon steel. 

1. A method of simultaneously drawing a plurality of wires comprising the steps of: a. providing a long carrier having a plurality of troughs formed in the peripheral surface thereof; b. containing a plurality of bundled material wires in the troughs; c. closing the troughs to form a bound body; d. drawing the bound body, and a. then separating the long carrier from the wires.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein each trough is formed from a pleat having an excess piece thereof, and each trough is closed by calking the excess piece.
 3. The method of claim 1 which further includes the steps of: collecting and binding a plurality of the drawn bound bodies in a long carrier to form a compound drawn body, drawing the compound drawn body, and separating the long carriers from the material wires by a chemical process.
 4. The method of claim 1 which includes the steps of: a. prior to drawing the bound body, collecting a plurality of bound bodies, b. containing the bound bodies in a long carrier to form a compound body, and c. thereafter, drawing the compound bound body.
 5. The method of claim 4 wherein a plurality of drawn compound bodies are collected and contained in another long carrier to form a further compound bound body, the further compound body being then coated and drawn.
 6. The method of claim 1 wherein the material wires are stainless steel and the long carrier is medium carbon steel.
 7. The method of claim 6 which includes the step of lead patenting the bound body prior to drawing the bound body.
 8. The method of claim 6 wherein the material wires are plated with a metal hard to form an alloy therewith, and which further includes the step of lead patenting the bound body prior to drawing the bound body.
 9. A wire drawing carrier comprising an elongated body having a plurality of troughs formed on the peripheral surface thereof, each of the troughs comprising a deformable pleat extending along the axis of the body.
 10. The carrier of claim 9 wherein the carrier is formed from medium carbon steel. 